The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems (IHSs), and more particularly to system for troubleshooting IHSs using device snapshots.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an IHS. An IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, IHSs may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Some IHS users contract with support providers such that when there is a problem with their IHS, the support provider provides remote support to fix the problem with the IHS. The provision of remote support can raise a number of issues. For some problems, support providers will physically reproduce the IHS situation that caused the problem to allow troubleshooting of that problem in order to solve it. However, some IHS situations may be very difficult to physically reproduce, and in some cases the problem occurring in the user IHS may never materialize even when the IHS situation is physically reproduced. For example, the problem of IHSs in a datacenter intermittently moving into an unmanaged state has been found to not materialize even when the IHS situation was physically reproduced. In another example, the problem of script failures for fan modules in IHSs materialized only once in two weeks of physically reproducing the IHS situation. In yet another example, the problem of IHSs reporting certain volumes of storage devices as critical even when those volumes were not critical only materialized when the IHS situation, including over 200 hard disks and over 60 volumes, was physically reproduced, an IHS physical reproduction that required two weeks of time to accomplish. As should be appreciated, such physically reproductions are time-consuming and expensive to provide to attempt to solve a users IHS problem, particularly when the problem does not materialize upon the physical reproduction the IHS situation and thus cannot be solved remotely.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved troubleshooting system.